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Russia's President Vladimir Putin (c.) tours local housing during a visit to the Russian city of Elista Tuesday. A video leaked on Wednesday shows Mr. Putin shouting and cursing at his cabinet – a deviation from his usual, cool public persona.

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Moscow

Vladimir Putin usually appears to be the cool, poker-faced tough guy the KGB once trained him to be. But a somewhat different persona is on display in a video clip leaked by a Russian news agency Wednesday.

The edited video, taken at a meeting with Russian cabinet ministers and regional leaders after journalists had been ordered to switch off their cameras, shows Mr. Putin chewing out and cursing at officials for their failure to implement his presidential election promises.

"If we don’t do this, we will have to admit that either I’m not working effectively, or you all are working badly and you all should leave," Putin said. "I want to draw your attention to the fact that today I am leaning towards the second option."

The video of Putin lambasting his officials was published Wednesday on Lifenews.ru, an online tabloid that's usually Kremlin-friendly, leading some pundits to suggest that Putin may have actually wanted this outburst to be made public as well.

But Putin's press secretary, Dmitry Peskov, told journalists that the Kremlin was furious over the leak.

"What was published from the closed part of the meeting is outrageous and unacceptable from an ethical point of view," Mr. Peskov said. "We plan in the near future to make contact with the leadership of the publication, to ask for an explanation."